SDFR, reading your wife's story again made me weep.

Weaver, you should know SD has been one of the most helpful people on this board, he has a wonderful sense of humour and a wonderful way of looking at life. I never posted to him personally and I believe he only posted to me once or twice but I read everything he ever wrote. He is one of the "core" oldtimers of MB and, although he said he's taking a break from the board, he appears when he's needed just like the Lone Ranger.

He is a really great guy.

Jenny

<small>[ June 03, 2004, 12:18 AM: Message edited by: KiwiJ ]</small>

Thanks Jenny -

Are you busy making plans for your upcoming Bday weekend? (or should I say Dday (the big 50) oh no I forgot Dday on this forum means something else)

Once again I am amazed at the number of caring people here. It makes me wonder what people who don't have computers do to help themselves through bad times. They must be very lonely. I'm just glad I found this site. And it keeps me off EBAY!!!

Weaver

I keep thinking about the ex wife never contacting me. She called my house once and told my nephew that she was BF's husband and just wanted to know why this phone number kept showing up on her phone bill. That is all she said. Never heard from her again, and I never tryed to contact her. Isn't that strange? Didn't try to tell me she wanted her husband and for me to get out of his life. Nothing. One more reason for exposure, in my opinion. We both let him do what he was doing with no obstacles what so ever. And she never was real to me. Why didn't she fight??? I need to put this thought on WAT's "exposure" thread as one more pro.

Ofcourse maybe it was so easy because the marriage was truely over, if that was the case then maybe it was an exit affair, and a one time situational affair. But still it was an affair...

Oh good grief, maybe this forum is not such a good idea. Makes you think too much.

WHERE ARE THOSE FUNNY BOOKS I ORDERED?????

wEAVER

I imagine he had some explanation for her - just like he had explanations for you. He must have made flimsy excuses to you for various things. For example, did you ever ask for his home phone number and get a response like, "The dog ate it."

More likely, he he could have been a very practiced liar. Perhaps take her apparent ignorance as evidence of his deviousness.

WAT

Very funny WAT

No, I never asked he lived here in motel when I met him and traveled a lot. When he left on the weekends it was to go visit his children (I thought).

I live in a very high tourist area, with lots of out of town people. I tended bar for over ten years, and even as young as 21 when the guys would come in and whine about their lives, wives, bosses and then get drunk and hit on girls, I knew it was all b*llsh*t. Funny thing I don't remember girls doing this, maybe they did but just not to me.

Anyway, the point being, he must be a very good lier because I was didn't have a clue.

And quit giving me more things to think about. LOL

Okay Kiwi now I am blushing.... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" />

Weaver

I've been thinking this over in my mind (good excuse to not study for my statistics class <img border="0" title="" alt="[Razz]" src="images/icons/tongue.gif" /> )

Here is my take you met and formed a relationship under questionable circumstances and that can't be changed.

But how are his actions now? What caused the "coldfeet" towards the wedding?

Perhaps your real fear is not how you met but the fact he has failed in marriages twice before.

I don't know why but somehow his affair with you does not get to me as much despite being a betrayed spouse myself.

I look at the fact he still divorced his current wife when you ended things....in otherwords he wasn't a cake-eater with a wife and a mistress. He chose to divorce because of his feelings DESPITE the fact you had ended things. So that has me thinking his decision to end the marriage was not "fog" based with the grass is greener OP waiting for him in the wings.

So my educated guess is the real source of your cold feet is the number of marriages and or committed relationships that he has been involved in.

Your fear of marriage now stems from your fear that his definition of lifetime committment and yours are not one and the same.

More important your greatest fear maybe the ease of which he terminates committed relationships.

The affair is not disease its just a symptom. The real disease is his inability to stay in committed relationships...the affair is just further proof of that inability.

<small>[ June 03, 2004, 06:51 AM: Message edited by: stunned-dad-fast recovering ]</small>

stunned - I am not trying to answer for weaver, but my cold feet would have been the dishonesty. Period.

She asked, and he denied being married.

That is not a trivial lie. He deceived her.

Would you buy a used car from that man?

JMHO

WAT

Stunned -

It is the trust, I just don't trust him and I can't make the trust come. I wish with all my heart that there was some magic that could change that. I don't trust him because he lied to me for 8 months, I feel if he had told me the truth from the day I met him and gave me a choice then I would be able to. I think lies are bad because they take away a persons choice. They make you doubt yourself, the damage a lie does is very much worse than the act being lied about.

Let me give you some examples about how bad it has been since we moved in together -

My friends - I have a couple of very beautiful girlfriends, whom I love like sisters. One lives close to me with her H, the other is single. They used to be over at my house all the time but after he moved in I didn't even want them to come over anymore. He is very friendly to everyone, guys & girls. But if we did get together with them and he had any kind of conversation with them I would start a huge fight after they left. It got so bad that he flat refused to talk to any girls, period. It's really hard to explain but I love my friends but all of a sudden I didn't even want them to call. And my BF started getting really resentful, because he is such a friendly likeable guy. But still he was terrified to do or say anything that was going to trip my trigger.

His kids - He would go see his kids in another state. They missed him because he moved here and didn't see him as much as before. If I called where they were all staying (usually they all meet a hotel, or one daughters house) and no one answered I would immediately think that he was lying to me and he wasn't with his kids at all.
Totally irrational and primal reaction. I could NOT control it.

Concert - I bought him front row tickets to Sammy Hagar as a surprise for him and a friend. He was ecstatic and I was really happy about it. The night of the concert he was so excited while getting ready that I flew into a rage, thinking he was up to something. (what I have no idea) After concert he met some of my friends (guys from my work) and didn't get home until 2:30 am. I knew who he was with, it didn't matter. I kicked him out of the house. I still can't explain why it happened.

I have never behaved that way in my entire life. I have never been a jealous person. I don't like the bars, but he likes to go maybe once every couple of months with the guys. I can't handle it and I don't know why.

I do love him, with all my heart. But no one can live that way. If there was a way that I could trust, then I would definately want to be with him. But this is killing me.

My daughter really likes him. He has never over stepped his bounds with her in the way of discipline or anything else. He has the patience of JOB. I know because I have lived with him for the past two years. My neighbors really like him. He blows the snow out of all the drives on this street pretty much when he has the time. He goes over and cuts down trees if they need it. He's nice to my cat.

I know why he lied to me when he met me. Because I would not have gone out with him if he was married. He told me that was why. I said why couldn't you have just went home and got divorced and then asked me out. He said he knew I would not be available then and he could not chance it. I said didn't you think I would find out eventually, if you wanted me that bad didn't you think that I would be around long enough to some day find out about your WIFE. And he said he thought they by then he would have been divorced and it would not have mattered.

I was so hurt when I found and for the three months he was gone (getting his divorce started) that I wanted to die. I made myself go out with other guys, go to therapy, join a workshop. Anything because the pain was that bad.

I don't know how to explain it. My parents and grandmother died a couple of years before I met him. I spent most of the time after my daughter was born with my parents and daughter. Never even went out with a guy for six years because I didn't want anyone around my daughter. I was 35 when she was born and had enough of guys before then to last me a life time. But when I met him I
fell in love....and I have no idea why I even wrote this past paragraph, hardly relevent.

It's the trust, not the past marriages, not the child out of wedlock. Just the lie!

I don't know who he is. And I doubt everything about him.

Stunned - if you could get through that long story, you deserve an award.

Weaver

WAT on some level I understand where you are coming from but..............

What about FWSs?

I think a WS betraying their spouse is much worse than lieing to the OP. After all lies to a BS are so they can be with someone else not so they can be with you. And vows are broken between spouses so it adds to the lies.

We see plenty of reconciled couples.....and I bet every single one of those BSs would buy a used car from their former wayward spouse! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

weaver

I don't want to downplay your feelings but I do want to put them in perspective. I am far from the most betrayed of betrayed spouses but I will use my experience since well since its mine.

2 1/2 year affair by a spouse that had been sexually dysfunctional for 17 years. 20 years of hiding her past from me even when that past was impacting our marriage.

I live with the reality of what my FWW has done. That when she was that person in the past she was capable of a lengthy in depth betrayal that required numerous lies and deceptions.

I judge her in part by her painful past. I judge her in part by her actions post discovery. And I judge her in part by the feelings in my heart.

Its your life its your call. I merely want to stress what others have had to deal with and still found the strength to buy that used car! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Razz]" src="images/icons/tongue.gif" />

Stunned -

Can I ask you a question?

It's very obvious that you love your wife, very much. You are able to understand why she couldn't come to you, the one who loves and protects her, to help her. You understand how she could have had a physical affair with someone without love, and could not enjoy when their was love, with you.

But do you trust her? And does that even matter because you understand her? And if you don't trust her then you don't know if she will protect YOU. And would that matter?

I think it might me a gender thing. Women need to be protected and men need to be protectors.

Right or Wrong.

Weaver

Stunned - I think what I'm trying to say is that he lied to her about the very thing he wanted from her - a relationship.

He lied about his relationship, yet he wanted a relationship with her. George Orwell would be proud. Hypocrisy. Double speak.

It's like affairees who break up marriages to be together so they can get married. How self centered, blind, untrustworthy, and hypocritical is THAT?????

WAT

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> But do you trust her? And does that even matter because you understand her? And if you don't trust her then you don't know if she will protect YOU. And would that matter?

I think it might me a gender thing. Women need to be protected and men need to be protectors.

Right or Wrong.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Do I trust her? Yes because she has addressed the issues that led to the affair. And I know she has addressed those issues based on her becoming a passionate woman versus a sexually dysfunctional spouse. I also know based on some other tangible things....she hasn't had a "snake" nightmare in the year and a half since discovery....she routinely had them in the 17 years prior. She no longer can sleep through a plane crashing into the house. She use to be a very DEEP sleeper. Deep sleep is an escape for many abuse victims the lone chance to be safe from everything. She is much more sensitive not just to my feelings but everyone's feelings....something she could not do dealing with all she was over the years but refusing to face those issues.

So I have seen tangible measureable change hence I feel I can trust.

It does matter if she will protect me. In fact I would leave if I felt she wouldn't. I will not go through this again I would prefer to leave if I truly felt I was at risk.

On this part I needed repeated support from her/our therapist that dealing with her abusive past would protect me in the future. As she put and as my readings on the subject validated it...her dealing with her deamons did two key things.

One she no longer had the invisible V for victim stamped on her forehead for sexual predators to see.

Two she now looks up and sees things around her no longer looking down as if beaten down. Key here is this is both literally and figuratively. Over the years it drove me crazy how she would never look at her surroundings when we would walk downtown in a large city like Atlanta...or she wouldn't look up when headed to her car at night leaving the mall. Women who look submissive are easy marks for predators.

She looks up now.

Figuratively speaking she now recognizes some men are not really friends just looking for an opportunity.

When it comes to infidelity there is no gender relationship. No one male or female wants to feel vunerable to the possibility of their spouse straying.

SDFR -

I am going to take the emphasis off of me and on to you, if you don't mind...

Your story and your wife's recovery is fascinating. For instance I never knew that about not looking up or at their surroundings. (I'm wondering now if this shows up at a young age in children who are being abused?)

I have a tremendous amount of respect for you in that you have the love and the tenacity to stick by your wife through all of this.

Does your wife post on here? I think if she could share her recovery with other victims of sexual abuse, she could be of so much help to others. I have been reading a heartbreaking story from a women who is being terribly abused by her husband over on the needs forum, and I have nothing offer her accept support. I bet your wife could really help other people.

W.

weaver

She posted briefly under the username bunchessorry.

It was at about the 6 month the now infamous point where the anger seems to peak for many BSs.

She only briefly referred to her abuse. Her main goal was to seek advice as to whether I could ever get past the affair.

Its still difficult for to talk about it at times and she has and probably will always be a very private person. And as such she has not been a big user of message boards.